Tigers blast Phillies, 14-5 on March 27, 2008

Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tigers blast Phillies, 14-5
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

LAKELAND, Florida -- The Tigers only hope they begin their regular season the way they ended their Florida warm-up.

They socked 18 hits, a slew of them for extra bases, in pummeling the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-5, at Marchant Stadium in the final Grapefruit League game of the season.

On a gorgeous day in central Florida, and with a FSN Detroit audience taking it in, the Tigers got home runs from Placido Polanco and rookie outfielder Clete Thomas, who did nothing to hurt his chances at making the club as a final position player on manager Jim Leyland's roster.

Pudge Rodriguez hit a pair of doubles, and Brandon Inge drove in three runs with a double and an infield single.

The Tigers got seven runs in the eighth inning, two coming on Thomas' first home run of the spring, and two more scoring on Mike Henneman's double.

Leyland, who said before Thursday's game that his team was "ready" for Monday's opener against Kansas City at Comerica Park, got pleasing performances from most of the Tigers pitchers, headed by starter Kenny Rogers, who pitched four innings, three of them perfect 1-2-3 frames.

Rogers allowed three hits and two runs in the second, but had excellent control and command.

The Tigers played before a final-game audience of 8,830 at Marchant Stadium, which set a single-season attendance record at Marchant Stadium of 126,124. It broke last year's record of 122,074.

At that rate they'll score over TWO thousand runs this year!

I think we will love this season and this team!

finally! that's more like it! especially at the end, when the second-stringers were beatin' up on'em!